As the world’s most traded commodity, oil production is typically well monitored and analyzed. It also hasestablished links to geopolitics, international relations, and security.
... See More + Despite this attention, the illicitproduction, refining, and trade of oil and derivative products occur all over the world and provide significantrevenues outside of the oversight and regulation of governments. A prominent manifestation of thisphenomenon is how terrorist and insurgent organizations—including the Islamic State group, also known asISIL/ISIS or Daesh—use oil as a revenue source. Understanding the spatial and temporal variation inproduction can help determine the scale of operations, technical capacity, and revenue streams. Thisinformation, in turn, can inform both security and reconstruction strategies. To this end, we use satellite multispectralimaging and ground-truth pre-war output data to effectively construct a real-time census of oilproduction in areas controlled by the ISIL terrorist group. More broadly, remotely measuring the activity ofextractive industries in conflict-affected areas without reliable administrative data can support a broad range ofpublic policy and decisions and military operations.
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Accurately measuring oil production in low-governance contexts is an important task. Many terrorist organizations and insurgencies -- including the Islamic State group, also known as ISIL/ISIS or Daesh -- tap oil as a revenue source.
... See More + Understanding spatial and temporal variation in production in their territory can help address such threats by providing near real-time monitoring of their revenue streams, helping to assess long-term economic potential, and informing reconstruction strategies. More broadly, remotely measuring extractive industry activity in conflict-affected areas and other regions without reliable administrative data can support a broad range of public policy decisions and academic research. This paper uses satellite multi-spectral imaging and ground-truth pre-war output data to effectively construct a real-time day-to-day census of oil production in areas controlled by the terrorist group. The estimates of production levels were approximately 56,000 barrels per day (bpd) from July-December 2014, drop to an average of 35,000 bpd throughout 2015, before dropping further to approximately 16,000 bpd in 2016.
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